


you and i, at the end of the world

by seaqueen



Series: 2018 Stanley Cup Champions Collection [5]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, M/M, Tattoos, cup celebrations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaqueen/pseuds/seaqueen
Summary: Alex has no idea what time it is when Nicky tugs him out from the rest of their sight, draws him out the back entrance of the restaurant where they will not be noticed, and hopefully will not be missed. The air is cool on overheated skin and Nicky sways into him, kisses him in the strange half lit space of the alley. His eyes are bright when he pulls away and Alex can’t stop looking at him. “Come on.” He whispers against Alex’s lips, manic and glowing. “There’s something I want to do.”He has always been helpless to resist him.





	you and i, at the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> some day i'll stop writing cup fic. today is not that day.

It’s Nicky’s idea.

By now, nothing surprises Alex about the celebration that’s happening in all directions - even if the biggest surprise of _all_ of it is his partner.

Objectively, Alex knows how personally and deeply Nicky has taken their post season misfortunes through the years. He’d had a front row seat to last summer’s misery and it had lingered in the background of all they’d done, like a great spreading miasma. Neither of them had been willing to talk about it even with the one person in the entire world who would understand, and while there had still been so much joy in the summer they had not quite been able to shake the specter.

All of that is wiped clean now. Alex is a little in awe of how uninhibited Nicky is. It’s like all the years and the heartache and the pain have dropped away all at once as soon as the final buzzer had sounded - he looks a decade younger and unweighted by the world and Alex can’t look away. He’s glowing with it, perfect and golden and _happy_ \- he laughs and he smiles and none of it is hidden and tucked away any more, on display for anyone to see.

They take the celebration off the ice and back to the hotel, through dinner and to the club - onto the plane and then home to Washington. To the city that has lived and breathed with them through all of the heartbreak and all of the almosts; and now the city that none of them would ever dream of excluding from the celebration that spills out of all of them like a crashing wave of unrepentant joy.

Alex isn’t ashamed to say he loses track of some of it, like silken threads slipping through his fingers, all woven together by the same delirious joy that stitches them all together. He remembers waking up to the heat of Nicky’s mouth and then returning the favor in the shower before they tumble out the door together for the Nationals game; remembers the raucous crowd they’d been in the skybox. He remembers spilling out into Georgetown and the slick cool water as they’d splashed in the fountain with all the infectious joy of children that they feel like, having achieved childhood dreams. Everywhere they go, their fans and their city are more than happy to celebrate with them and Alex feels like he’s half made of burning starfire and champagne; that it burns through his veins as he roars his joy and happiness to the sky and the city roars back.

Nicky sprays the crowd with the soda nozzle and Alex laughs long and low and kisses him behind the bar when no one is looking - unable to help himself at the smug sly look that paints his lover’s face; at the way he’s clearly delighted with himself and with everything around him.

And it seems everywhere he goes, everywhere he turns, Nicky is never more than an arms length away.

He’s soaked, again, hat turned backwards and looking so full of joy he almost explodes with it - years younger and stress shed like he emerges from it brand new and ready to take on the world.

Alex has no idea what time it is when Nicky tugs him out from the rest of their sight, draws him out the back entrance of the restaurant where they will not be noticed, and hopefully will not be missed. The air is cool on overheated skin and Nicky sways into him, kisses him in the strange half lit space of the alley. His eyes are bright when he pulls away and Alex can’t stop looking at him. “Come on.” He whispers against Alex’s lips, manic and glowing. “There’s something I want to do.”

He has always been helpless to resist him.

The tattoo parlor is deserted, only a sleepy looking twenty something manning the front desk, and Alex blinks in confusion when Nicky stops them in front of it and drops Alex’s hand. “We get tattoos?” He asks, just for clarification's sake because between the alcohol and the utter absurdity of the situation Alex feels justified in his mystification. “If you want tattoo, why not go with rest of team at other place?” Alex follows with, curious.

There’s a bright, entirely playful gleam in those green eyes as he turns back from his consideration of the linework designs through the glass.

“Thought _we_ could get tattoos.” Nicky says slyly. “Matching, even.”

And, well, now the idea is firmly lodged in his mind and there’s no getting it out. Alex abruptly loses his breath at the idea of ink painted against the pale of Nicky’s skin, tracing elegant lines over the curves of his body to mark this moment - _their_ moment - into something so very permanent. And to share it with Alex and put the needle to his body and mark him in a way that could never be erased, to sew them together as if every breath and beat of their lives weren’t already so entirely intertwined they could never be separated.

Nicky crowds him against the brick wall beside the tattoo shop, one hand splayed over Alex’s heart. “You like that idea.” He murmurs. “Don’t you.” It must be written all over Alex’s face, because that smug, sly look is back on Nicky’s; one side of his lips quirked higher than the other. “Yeah. You do.” Nicky says.

Alex makes a noise of complaint when Nicky pulls away, but his hand to falls to loosely circle Alex’s wrist, and he draws them both inside the shop. The woman behind the desk startles at the sight of them, eyes widening as she recognizes both of them and then she quickly disappears into the back to presumably find the artist. Alex is more interested in the Swede standing patiently with his hands tucked loosely in his pockets, studying the wall of art again.

He isn’t really seeing it - Alex recognizes the look on his face, even when they’re both thoroughly plastered. It’s a look he’s seen a thousand times on the ice and off it, the look Nicky gets as he contemplates something that would escape the rest of the population but Nicky worries over like a terrier until he snaps his jaws shut and comes up with some thread of brilliance.

It’s not the best metaphor and Alex might have lost the thread of it somewhere, but he is drunk and therefore blameless by his own consideration.

Alex goes under the needle first, already the beneficiary of a handful of tattoos. Nicky looks rapt where he perches on a stool behind the artist, tucking blond curls behind his ears again no matter how many times they escape when he leans forward. He looks like a great golden eagle, Alex thinks whimsically, predatory and sharp eyed.

When Alex is finished, Nicky looks just as enraptured. He smooths his fingers over the plastic wrapping on Alex’s chest, over his heart - over the Cup’s proud likeness, over where the weagle rests just beneath its bowl and the upswept wings holding it, over the 2018 inked onto the top most band with the stars in the 8; and most especially over the careful lettering on the new bottom band where their numbers sit, side by side. Alex’s breath catches and he goes heavy lidded, breathing shallow and uneven as Nicky’s clever fingers explore the new lines of it, learning this new piece of Alex’s body.

And then they’re trading places as Nicky bares his hip, the thin lines of his surgery scars pale crescents against his already pale skin.

Alex underestimates the effect seeing the image take shape on Nicky’s unmarked virgin skin will have on him. An image mirrored on Alex’s own skin, that uses the scars that this sport they both love so much has put on his skin and makes it apart of it. Because it is, they are - Nicky’s surgery was a part of their journey. A part of their Cup. The color takes shape on his skin and becomes recognizable as the needle buzzes; and Alex can’t look away at the careful shape of the small letters bound up in one another that paint him. Nicky’s eyes are on Alex as it happens. The rest falls away.

It must hurt - Alex can see the thin lines of pain creasing the corners of his partner’s lips, done as it is over his bad hip and the old wounds, but Nicky gives no notice of it beyond that involuntary action and one that Alex would miss had he not spent a decade learning every facet and being of this man. But soon enough the artist is done and Nicky is stumbling to his feet, looking as rapt in the mirror as he had looking at Alex’s. Alex steps up behind him and molds himself against his back, hooking his chin over his shoulder to look at him in the mirror. Neither of them notice the artist quietly slipping out of the room.  

He fits his hand over Nicky’s hip and the new tattoo, the plastic wrap crinkling lightly beneath his fingers. Nicky lets his breath hiss out between his teeth, head falling back to loll against Alex’s shoulder. “You and me, Nicke.” Alex says fiercely. “You and me, we made it. We’re here.”


End file.
